Friday, December 5, 2014

Skiff Stories: Otela Lights - Keikira Botsada

As we all know, gankers tend to repeat the similar robot-like statements all the time. According to them, all miners are bad and AFK. What's more, many of them, especially the brain-washed heretics, want to remove all forms of mining from Highsec.

I will show how wrong they are once again, with some more ganker education. Let's get to it!

It was another day in Otela ice belt when I noticed the connection of a gank scout in my watch list. It was Dwin Utrigas, the gank scout for one of the most robot-like suicide gankers in EVE history: Keikira Otsada. Besides his strangely funny name, Keikira Otsada's bot-aspirancy has been observed by almost all anti-gankers and miners in Otela. In addition to his usual fail-fit Catalyst, he mostly wanted to perform his repetitive gank attempts in the same star system without having a ganking permit.Upon noticingthe connection of Dwin Utrigas, I quickly turned my eyes to Local chat list. I surely expected him to be in Otela since he was too lazy and robot-like to operate elsewhere.

There he was. Dwin Utrigas was in Local with us. In many cases, this marks the first step of what I call "the bot-aspirant escalation of a Catalyst pilot." Experienced Anti-Gankers are experts when it comes to observing, analyzing and predicting the actions of robot-like gankers. First, the scout gets connected, followed by the ganker pilot himself about 42 seconds later, which is exactly what happened in our case too.

The Catalyst pilot was now in Local as well. I knew that Dwin Utrigas was an exception when it comes to scouting. Unlike many others, he was clever enough to use his Procurer for scouting.

I definitely expected him to warp to the ice belt. Because of laziness, they don't really try to find a more suitable target at a distant asteroid belt. After about a minute or two, as expected, Dwin Utrigas landed at the ice belt in his Procurer.Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, most gankers believe that all miners are angry, AFK carebears who can easily be ganked. However, the intel was circulating in the mining fleet from the moment Dwin Utrigas logged in. As he landed at the belt, we were all aware of who he was, and what bot-aspirant behavior he was enforcing.

It generally doesn't take too long for Dwin Utrigas to actually find a target. That's pretty much how a robot behaves when you program it to do the same thing over and over again during all its EVE career.At that moment, I was ice mining in my ECM Skiff with several other miners near me, one of them being a Hulk. In the middle of the impressive industrial scenery, sounds of the busy Ice Harvester modules and the crowded ice field, Dwin Utrigas started approaching us…As he positioned his ship to provide warp-in for Keikira Otsada, I was already smashing D-Scan, waiting for that Catalyst.In fact, he did know me and my intentions, yet such automated machines cannot realize the fact that player interaction matters, and PvP is everywhere in Highsec, including ice fields and exhumers.All of a sudden, that Catalyst appeared on D-Scan.

What I felt upon seeing that Catalyst on D-Scan was very similar to another feeling: Imagine you were at the Fouquet's Restaurant in Paris, and after waiting for like 30 minutes, the waitress finally appears in the corner, bringing your favorite meal to you from the kitchen.

About 15 seconds later, the sounds in the ice belt had changed. [ 2013.10.08 18:21:22 ] (notify) Keikira Otsada, criminals are not welcome here. Leave now or be destroyed.[ 2013.10.08 18:21:23 ] (combat) Warp scramble attempt from Keikira Otsada (Catalyst) to Cyril Savalette [-FAH-](Hulk)The sounds of Ice Harvesters were temporarily replaced by the sounds of Anti-Ganking justice. Only one cycle of Light Neutron Blaster reverb was heard, and then it was immediately replaced by the sounds of four Magnetometric jammers of my Skiff, projecting strong waves of ionized particles and destabilizing, disrupting every single sensor in the Catalyst's targeting system. Meanwhile, multiple flights of drones were leaving different barges and exhumers drone bays to attack, destroy and punish this automated ganking-bot.Miners Komar Nuchi, Cyril Savalette, Caldari Police 3rd Lieutenant, Hunsen and AzovRassau reacted to Keikira Otsada's bot-aspirant behavior.

As you can see below, thanks to our intervention, Keikira Otsada's gank attempt only mattered for a few seconds:

The Catalyst was fail-fit, and it was successfully jammed by our Skiff immediately. This is nothing new.

But take a second look at the involved parties:

Are you getting it?

There was no CONCORD in that kill. No God-like NPC intervention. No stupid, automatic Neuts, Jams or DPS. The heavy amount of DPS and ECM was done by real players before CONCORD had even arrived. In other words, players replaced CONCORD, and EVE was once again played in Highsec. Isn't that awesome?

This is exactly why CONCORD should be nerfed (or, shouldn't be buffed). Real player interaction, PvP are in the core of EVE. It's fun, emergent and rewarding for everyone. In fact, the more CONCORD gets buffed, the less Highsec residents have fun. Most of them just don't know it yet.

Highsec is an environment which works and survives just like the human body. There are multiple organs that work together to keep the whole body alive. When one of the organs becomes sick, the whole body will start to suffer. The main organs that keep Highsec alive are chaos, emergency and content. In other words, it is the gankers, anti-gankers and miners. These three elements need each other to have fun.

It is our responsibility to keep each of those three elements alive. As can be seen in that killmail, once there is motivation, nothing will prevent any of them from using the game mechanics to defend their cause.

I will hereby recommend all Highsec miners to use this ECM Skiff during their mining operations. Not only will it turn you into a better miner, but it will also make you a better EVE player overall. With that Skiff, you will be able to efficiently protect nearby miners while also teaching valuable lessons to the bot-aspirant Catalysts.Next week, we will have a closer look at the idea of ECM Skiff by showing how and why you should use it.

To the gankers who say "we want to remove all forms of mining from Highsec", our answer is: